Ultraviolet wands shed light on hospital cleaning

As written in an article by Times Colonist journalist Cindy E. Harnett, cleaning inspections at Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) facilities this year will involve some high-tech detective work, thanks to the use of hand-held ultraviolet lights. “It’s similar technology, but we’re using it in a low-tech way,” said Murray Hutchison, VIHA’s corporate director of […]
Marlee Loiselle, contract manager of Environmental Support Services with the Vancouver Island Health Authority, uses an ultraviolet light to detect unclean areas in a test at Royal Jubilee Hospital.

As written in an article by Times Colonist journalist Cindy E. Harnett, cleaning inspections at Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) facilities this year will involve some high-tech detective work, thanks to the use of hand-held ultraviolet lights.

“It’s similar technology, but we’re using it in a low-tech way,” said Murray Hutchison, VIHA’s corporate director of general support services.

According to the article, ‘VIHA staff will identify and mark 10 of the ‘most touched points’ in a given room or area of a health facility and 24 hours later, inspectors will return and shine a UV light on the areas. If the mark is still there, it is proof the area hasn’t been sufficiently cleaned’.

The tools are part of VIHA’s strategy to improve cleanliness at its facilities.

It seems that ‘improper cleaning methods and insufficient cleaner strength played a significant role in an 11-month C. difficile outbreak that started in 2008 at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital and infected 94 people and killed five’.

Harnett writes that last week, VIHA announced a new private housekeeping contract worth $10.6 million a year over five years, with Crothall Services Canada, a division of Compass Group Canada.

As stated by Harnett the new contract ‘raises cleaning standards targets, increases staffing levels to 246 from 212 full time equivalents, creates a specialist outbreak cleaning team, enhances monitoring processes and introduces more patient and staff satisfaction surveys’.

‘VIHA is testing UV equipment provided by Westech Systems Inc. in three facilities and the technology will officially roll out in all VIHA facilities in 2013, the second year of housecleaning contracts’.

“The testing is somewhat validating the usefulness of the tool,” Hutchison said.

As stated in the article ‘the device looks like a small flashlight. It emits high-energy UV light that will be absorbed by the marking material – likely some type of phosphor – placed by VIHA inspectors on frequently touched surfaces in a given healthcare facility.

“Seconds after exposure to the UV light, the electrons in the material, which become ‘excited’, return to a lower energy state by emitting light; that is the phosphorous glow that inspectors will see,” said Rob Lipson, dean of science at the University of Victoria.

“It’s a good observational and educational tool,” Hutchison said. “We looked across the cleaning industry and this is really starting to get some legs.”

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Photograph by Darren Stone

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